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An even more relevant and striking article 7 years later. I truly worry for the kind of world my children may grow up in, filled with manufactured fears and hel

An even more relevant and striking article 7 years later. I truly worry for the kind of world my children may grow up in, filled with manufactured fears and helicopter parents buzzing about trying to prevent the world from getting in. At 25, I grew up in one of the last unadulterated times to be young in our history. No cell phone, not much supervision, just a couple of friends and a forest that felt the size of the world. I wonder how long until true childhood adventure is lost for good - marginalized to after-school curriculums and playdates planned on "Tinder for Tots". Go outside, get cuts and scrapes, and you'll turn out all the stronger and more knowledgable from it.

HiroshiSan 10y ago
Oh man, I used to love running around outside, finding a good stick and carving it into a spear.
- wonder_er 10y ago
  I built "forts" throughout what felt like miles and miles of empty woods. Leave the house in the morning, get back sometime later that day. I'd want the same for my future children, but my greatest fear is a nosy neighbor calling CPS due to my seemingly negligent parenting style. (As inferred from my children having copious amounts of free time, bereft of adult supervision.)
  - toyg 10y ago
    > my greatest fear is a nosy neighbor calling CPS Ditto. My kids are now old enough that they can both ride a bike, so I let them circle around the block on their own. Every time they go, my heart is gripped by terror that some neighbour will report "feral" children. I grew up in a block of small "working class" flats with large communal gardens and a small park; I could safely ride and play with other kids, and most of them were going to the same school as me. Now I live in middle-class suburbia, in a larger house with a nice private garden; but my kids cannot wander around without risking to be hit by a car, their "parks" are just playgrounds with lawns, and because they attend a "better" school a bit further away, don't really know anyone in the area. This is the product of an individualist culture, of which I am a prime representative. I don't like conflict, not even the occasional low-intensity friction which is inevitable when you share anything (a block, a garden, a parking lot); so I bought a house where People Shall Leave Me Alone and where Kids Shall Be Safe. This makes it much more difficult for my kids to be social and "explore the wilderness". And no, virtual realities are not a replacement.
justinator 10y ago
I've architected my life so that adventure in the woods is still a quick bike ride to the trailhead.If I have more time acailable, There's the National Forest, Wilderness and a National Park, all a few hours by bike. I can bring along a sleeping back and stay out indefinetly. Without this access, yeah I'd feel a little dead inside. "Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - E. Abbey
- AnimalMuppet 10y ago
  "The wilderness once offered a plausible way of life. Now it functions as a psychological refuge. Soon there will be no more wilderness. Then the madness becomes universal. And the universe goes mad." - E. Abbey
  - macandcheese 10y ago
    While we're on Abbey quotes... "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.” - EA This quote has always been a source of debate for me. Does the idea of wilderness need no defense? Must we create heavily managed spaces simply to prevent the tragedy of the commons from occurring? Does the fact that wilderness is a political designation mean that it is not truly "wild"? I'm of the mind that because societal negligence of our natural world leads to its destruction in one form or another almost certainly, then yes, the idea of wilderness needs no defense, but one can argue that the designation itself leads to a place losing its "wildness"...
    - justinator 10y ago
      There could be a good argument that nothing is Wilderness, and that Wilderness itself - in the US at least, is a 18th-sh century construct, created by a European-leaning philosophy that didn't understand the relationship between the land and the people that were there before them, but were instead bound by the God and Relgion on the idea of almost a second Eden and a Manifest Destiny to take the land which belonged to on one. In reality all those forests that the original author writes so daringly about were manicured and well-cared for woods, engineered to provide food in the form of nuts and berries, as well as prime hunting ground for big game, say nothing for easily passageway between villages for trade and seasonal migration. In this perspective man has for a very long time held the spot of curator of so-called, "Wild Lands". It's my opinion that we continue to do so. Not for monetary gain (although there is - the Outdoor Industry isn't that small), but because without it, we all commit suicide, in a very real way.
j1vms 10y ago
> At 25, I grew up in one of the last unadulterated times to be young in our history. (...) I wonder how long until true childhood adventure is lost for good Perhaps whenever something is lost, something else has been gained. And this even when we not able to spot it from each of our unique, and no less important, vantage points.

HiroshiSan 10y ago

Oh man, I used to love running around outside, finding a good stick and carving it into a spear.

wonder_er 10y ago
I built "forts" throughout what felt like miles and miles of empty woods. Leave the house in the morning, get back sometime later that day. I'd want the same for my future children, but my greatest fear is a nosy neighbor calling CPS due to my seemingly negligent parenting style. (As inferred from my children having copious amounts of free time, bereft of adult supervision.)
- toyg 10y ago
  > my greatest fear is a nosy neighbor calling CPS Ditto. My kids are now old enough that they can both ride a bike, so I let them circle around the block on their own. Every time they go, my heart is gripped by terror that some neighbour will report "feral" children. I grew up in a block of small "working class" flats with large communal gardens and a small park; I could safely ride and play with other kids, and most of them were going to the same school as me. Now I live in middle-class suburbia, in a larger house with a nice private garden; but my kids cannot wander around without risking to be hit by a car, their "parks" are just playgrounds with lawns, and because they attend a "better" school a bit further away, don't really know anyone in the area. This is the product of an individualist culture, of which I am a prime representative. I don't like conflict, not even the occasional low-intensity friction which is inevitable when you share anything (a block, a garden, a parking lot); so I bought a house where People Shall Leave Me Alone and where Kids Shall Be Safe. This makes it much more difficult for my kids to be social and "explore the wilderness". And no, virtual realities are not a replacement.

justinator 10y ago

I've architected my life so that adventure in the woods is still a quick bike ride to the trailhead.If I have more time acailable, There's the National Forest, Wilderness and a National Park, all a few hours by bike. I can bring along a sleeping back and stay out indefinetly. Without this access, yeah I'd feel a little dead inside. "Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit, and as vital to our lives as water and good bread. May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." - E. Abbey

AnimalMuppet 10y ago
"The wilderness once offered a plausible way of life. Now it functions as a psychological refuge. Soon there will be no more wilderness. Then the madness becomes universal. And the universe goes mad." - E. Abbey
- macandcheese 10y ago
  While we're on Abbey quotes... "The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.” - EA This quote has always been a source of debate for me. Does the idea of wilderness need no defense? Must we create heavily managed spaces simply to prevent the tragedy of the commons from occurring? Does the fact that wilderness is a political designation mean that it is not truly "wild"? I'm of the mind that because societal negligence of our natural world leads to its destruction in one form or another almost certainly, then yes, the idea of wilderness needs no defense, but one can argue that the designation itself leads to a place losing its "wildness"...
  - justinator 10y ago
    There could be a good argument that nothing is Wilderness, and that Wilderness itself - in the US at least, is a 18th-sh century construct, created by a European-leaning philosophy that didn't understand the relationship between the land and the people that were there before them, but were instead bound by the God and Relgion on the idea of almost a second Eden and a Manifest Destiny to take the land which belonged to on one. In reality all those forests that the original author writes so daringly about were manicured and well-cared for woods, engineered to provide food in the form of nuts and berries, as well as prime hunting ground for big game, say nothing for easily passageway between villages for trade and seasonal migration. In this perspective man has for a very long time held the spot of curator of so-called, "Wild Lands". It's my opinion that we continue to do so. Not for monetary gain (although there is - the Outdoor Industry isn't that small), but because without it, we all commit suicide, in a very real way.

j1vms 10y ago

> At 25, I grew up in one of the last unadulterated times to be young in our history. (...) I wonder how long until true childhood adventure is lost for good Perhaps whenever something is lost, something else has been gained. And this even when we not able to spot it from each of our unique, and no less important, vantage points.